A tiny village Kooroom Kheta under latehar’s Manika block is in limbo. The revenue office of latehar administration finds this tiny village of about 150 people a non revenue village. Sources said a village is a non revenue village when it has no proper khatyan. Further in the year 2012 the area in which Kooroom Kheta is situated came under tiger reserve but in the list of tiger reserve the area has not been marked as village!
Confirming this DFO Core of the tiger reserve A K Mishra said ‘ During the time DFO Core Premjit Anand was here in this tiger reserve a large chunk of land of latehar district came under the ambit of the tiger reserve. There came with this tiger reserve villages from latehar district like Role, Pirhi Kookoo but there is no mention of this tiny hamlet Kooroom Kheta’
Sources said if this hamlet turns out to be a forest village then there will be lots of problems for the people residing here.
V S Dubey DFO latehar speaking to the Pioneer said ‘ As per records in 1912 -1913this chunk of Kooroom Kheta was notified as jungle. It was denotified by Bihar government in the year 1986-87. later on in the year 2012 it was included in the tiger reserve Palamu’. Dubey said this is all about that he knows about this tiny village since it is now a part of territory of tiger reserve Palamu.
DFO Core of PTR A K Mishra when contacted said ‘ This piquant situation has arisen. The revenue office of latehar disown s this village. The PTR’s list coming from latehar does not make any mention of it as well. But there live families and people. And this cannot be ignored or overlooked’.
Asked if the dwellers here would be covered under forest right act Mishra said patta of forest land may be given to them for their livelihood but as far as malikana ( possession )right is concerned it cannot be given.